Author Archives: Dr. Mike

-Happy New Year- 2013: A Good Time to Pray

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Happy New Year- 2013!

It is a good time to begin the year right with a prayer for peace around the world.

Remember to pray for the peace in Jerusalem and in the Middle East. Also let’s remember to pray that the Iranian drive for nuclear weapons will somehow be peacefully resolved.

It is also a great time to pray for our economy which seems to be stuck in recession with all sort of folks (self appointed experts) warning that maybe the worst is yet to come?

Meanwhile, we have political leaders in Washington DC that seem to be more interested in pushing their own agenda and increasing their own political power above that which might be best for the country and the world. Let’s pray that this tendency will be turned around in 2013.

There are Christians all around the world being persecuted for their faith. Let’s remember them in our prayers. Just in the last week – Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was re-arrested and taken from his family in Iran on Christmas Day, 12 Christians were killed by Muslim terrorists in Nigeria during Christmas Eve services, 41 Christians were arrested by the religious police in Saudi Arabia for having a Christmas party in a private home, a Christian man in Syria was beheaded by the Islamist rebels and fed to  animals, and 10 million+ Coptic Christians in Egypt are now facing a new reality of life under a newly approved radical sharia supporting Constitution.

It is also a good time to pray that revival will come to places all around America and that the American church will experience a new reformation of hope and finally stand up and bear the light and hope of the Good News of Jesus Christ to a darkening culture and people that desperately need good news and hope in their lives.

May God bless us all in 2013.      

-“10 Stupid Things Ministers Should Never Do”

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Ministerial accountability has become a major issue among Christians and particularly in Charismatic and Pentecostal circles. Here’s an timely and poignant article by J. Lee Grady that addresses some of the major and most common areas of potential failure that those in the ministry should avoid. The article actually went viral with links to it from several major news sites. I even found it on The Blaze.

“10 Stupid Things Ministers Should Never Do”

Here are the first five:

1. Take illegal drugs. I know people who never got complete deliverance from their drug habit—and then when the pressures of ministry grew intense they turned to illegal substances to escape. That’s stupid! If you aren’t in control of your actions 100 percent of the time, you have no business in the ministry.

2. Reject accountability. The Lone Ranger may have been a great comic book hero, but isolation doesn’t work in real life. Lack of accountability is stupid! If you don’t answer to people smarter than you, you are an accident waiting to happen—and you’re going to hurt God’s people. You have no right to be in authority if you are not under authority.

3. Beat or abuse your wife. The Bible says in 1 Peter 3:7clip_image002 that God will not listen to your prayers if you mistreat your wife. If you are an abuser (and even if you are a master at hiding your sin from others), the Lord will oppose you until you seek help.

4. Surround yourself with adoring fans. Years ago, fallen PTL founder Jim Bakker said his biggest mistake was planting “yes men” around him instead of people who had the guts to challenge his bad decisions. If you aren’t willing to invite input—including criticism—from your followers, you are a weak leader headed for disaster.

5. Fabricate spiritual gifts to impress others. In our movement there’s a lot of pressure to produce the sensational in order to keep people entertained. But if you stoop so low as to fake a healing, conjure up a false prophecy or push someone to the floor, the Holy Spirit will step aside and let you run the sideshow without His power. It’s stupid to mix strange fire and risk offending God!

<Read the whole article>              

-10,000 Young Egyptians Gather to Worship Jesus

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(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a remarkable story. Their Pope (Coptic Church) has recently passed away and the Muslim Brotherhood is now in charge of their nation with the persecution of Christians on the rise nearly on every front. In the midst of all of the current turmoil including the attacks upon the American embassy in Cairo, over 10,000 young Egyptians gathered in the desert to pray for their nation and worship Jesus.

From Charisma News:

Earlier this month about 10,000 Christian young people came from all across Egypt for three days to worship the Lord and to seek God’s blessing for their country. The worshippers, mostly ranging from ages 13 to 30, gathered from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. each evening. Many traveled hundreds of miles to the worship site in the middle of the desert north of Cairo.

“To sit among over 10,000 young people, worship with them in a roaring holy noise, listen to powerful and challenging messages and pray for God’s powerful presence in our lives; really, it is hard to describe in words,” says a Christian leader. “Sitting at the very back of the small soccer stadium gave me a good view of the scene. Thousands were sitting to my right, thousands to my left and thousands more in the middle. Hardly any empty gaps!

The three day event was called “One Thing.” The theme of the meetings was taken from Psalm 27:4:

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

According to the article, another 2 million followed the event on Internet and through live satellite transmission.

<Read the whole article>

-Holy Spirit Rains Down On Ottawa

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The weather was miserable and the rain was pouring down on Ottawa, Canada but so was the Holy Spirit. Thousands came and hundreds went away saved. But even more were reached around the world though a live webstream. A remarkable story:

The reach of Rock the River this weekend was not limited to the banks of the Ottawa River.

That thousands came and hundreds accepted Christ as Lord and Savior was an answer to so many prayers in the Ottawa-Gatineau metro area.

But around the world, logging into a live webstream, hundreds more made decisions by watching the artists, testimonies and Gospel message from Franklin Graham.

Thousands of people watched Rock the River in over 70 countries, from as far away as Malaysia, Phillipines, Hong Kong, Finland and Singapore.

<Read the whole account on billygraham.org>

-Millions of Youth Pray for Spiritual Awakening

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From Charisma News:

Before the opening bell on Wednesday, millions of students from across the country gathered at their school’s flagpole to pray for their nation, their towns and cities, and their schools at the annual See You at the Pole (SYATP) prayer gathering.  …

The First Amendment guarantees students the right to pray on school grounds. During any noninstructional time—before or after school, in between classes, during the lunch hour or on the playing field—students may express their opinions verbally or in writing. Prayer is a form of speech, and therefore during noninstructional time, students have the constitutional right to pray individually or in groups.

<Read the whole article>

Response: Yesterday was the 22nd annual SYATP prayer rally and according to reports it is an event that continues to grow. This year the focus was upon spiritual awakening for America.

With a crucial election around the corner and world wide challenges to our Constitutional rights to free speech and religion it was more than timely to have millions of youth praying across America for our future and for revival.  Praise God- may those millions of prayers move heaven and earth and bring a new Awakening to a dry and thirsty land. may God bless America once more.  

-Remembering 9/11/01 and Looking Towards the Future

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Our family visited the 9/11 Memorial in NY City 10 days ago and found it to be an experience that is nearly impossible to put into words.The site is huge and nearly everywhere you look there is new construction going on. We quietly filed into the memorial grounds with thousands of others but it was the sounds of construction and not of people that were plainly heard the day we were there. Today it is a place of quite reflection.

While that day we remembered what happened on 9/11/01 our greatest thoughts were on the future as we viewed the new Freedom Tower rising up to dominant a new NY City skyline along with two other World Trade towers rising also from the ashes of the past.

Personally, the greatest experience for me was visiting St. Paul’s Chapel (Built in 1766- picture above) which was right across the street from the memorial and had been a staging and resting area for the rescue people following 9/11/01.

The history of the chapel is incredible. It was the church that George Washington worshipped in and following his 1st inauguration at Federal Hall in NYC 1789, Washington and the entire new government of the United States including the new Congressmen and Senators walked to St. Paul’s Chapel and prayed together for the future of the new constitutional republic of America that began that day. At that time, all of the lands on which the World Trade Center was later built upon were part of the church property.

Coming out of the experience of actually being there and reading about the history of the site I am now convinced that the attack was not just one of terror and politics but was also a spiritual attack on the religious foundations of our nation. The rebuilding at the site shows our resolve but the real future of America will be defined by our spiritual responses and condition.

We have a past where the entire American government prayed for our future on that very site. “May a new spiritual awakening start in this very place and bring a new revival all across America while there is yet day”: that was one of the prayers I prayed 10 days ago in Paul’s Chapel at Ground Zero. Let us remember the past and look to the future, pray for revival, and pray that God will bless America once more.              

-Moves of God in America?

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(VCC Mercy Warehouse-Kelly Lynn Photography)

God is moving and bringing major revivals all around the world and nearly on every continent except in the Western countries of North America and Europe. Even in Europe there is revival among the Roma (Gypsies) people.

But in the USA some are asking if the glory has departed. Others are boldly proclaiming God’s judgment every time a natural disaster happens or there’s a mass murder event. Still others including myself are observing that America could use a new awakening in order to bring us back from the brink.

However, what I am really expecting right now are diverse moves of God in individual churches and communities all across America and Canada. Most of these moves will probably never reach a level where they will ever be acknowledged by the main stream media but thousands of people and maybe even millions could ultimately be touched by some move or another –a few hundred at a time.

Here’s an example of what I am looking for- a move of God in a regular church that started with intercession and healing: “God’s Big Move in a Small Town”

Another example in the making: Here at VCC Laguna Niguel (CA) there are some remarkable things happening. We have a 20,000 sf warehouse where we provide food and clothing for over a 1000 poor and jobless in South OC. In the last 3 months or so over 150 people have been saved along with hundreds of healings happening right in the middle of the warehouse. In fact it is the healings and the miracles that are leading to the conversions.

Now it is spilling over into our regular worship services and at least someone is healed at nearly every service. I would not call it revival but it sure is great and our expectations have been escalating.

Also I attend a marketplace prayer group once a week at VCC where we pray for each others jobs, businesses, and pray for those who need jobs and greater opportunities. We are now seeing answers to prayer and miraculous testimonies every week while the business climate of our county has been poor and in the midst of recession. Personally I have had several nearly impossible answers to prayer when it comes to my job and business. Believe me when I say that my expectations and those of all who attend these meetings have certainly escalated since I started attending the prayer services 3 years ago.

Point is, looking back I can see that God is moving in our midst and has been for some time but there is nothing happening at VCC that couldn’t and shouldn’t be happening everywhere else in America. However we still have a long ways to go.

When we send mission teams to India, Cambodia, Asia, Africa or elsewhere they experience a different level of the miraculous and nearly everyone they pray for are healed. We are not there yet back at home in South OC but it is sure better than it use to be.

Still it is a lot like Nazareth- only a few healings at a time. But I can see the faith rising and with it the expectations of our people. It is time for the faith and expectations of Christians in America, who seem to be on the defensive right now (Chick-fil-A et al), to rise above our surrounding dominant secular culture and allow God to move among us in a fresh way. Let’s move out of Nazareth and head back towards Azusa St. and Wales.           

-Brazil: 1 Million Evangelical Christians March for Jesus

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(Sao Paulo, Brazil: Wikipedia)

Have you seen this? From the Christian Post (Link NLA):

More than 1 million evangelical Christians participated in the annual “March for Jesus” in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Saturday. (July 14)

“The number of people participating is extremely high – at least 1 million,” The Associated Press quoted Police Capt. Luis Fernando Otaviano as saying of the annual march in Sao Paulo.  …

Brazil’s evangelical population is exploding, jumping from 6.6 percent to 22.2 percent of the overall Brazilian population, according to the 2010 census. This means that evangelical Christianity is the fastest growing religious segment in Brazil.

Look at the recent growth rate of the evangelical Christians (mostly Charismatic and Pentecostal) in Brazil! There is an on-going revival in that country and it is also one of the very few places in the whole world that has a booming economy right now. 

According to Pew Forum, at the end of 2011, Brazil was the world’s second most Christian-populated country. Who knew?            

-America Needs a Third Great Awakening or It’s Over?

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(united states currency seal: kevindean)

This is not a popular message among Christians in America but many leaders are beginning to sense a turn in history that America may not be able to recover from unless God brings on a Third Great Awakening in our nation.

Many see the economic problems that face our country and hope that they will be solved by merely electing a new president with exceptional business experience. Unfortunately, the choice before us is between a professing liberal Christian with a secular world view and a Mormon that shares our values but maybe not the Holy Spirit that is so needed in these trying times.

But what about the decline in our culture and the headlong charge towards same-sex marriage and the continuing secularization and the increasing demonization of Christianity in the public square? What about the very real decline in religious freedom in our nation? Pastors being arrested for holding Bible studies in their homes. Social change trumping the Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom. Secularists claiming that conservative Christians that stand up for traditional marriage and hold to Biblical teaching when it comes to homosexuality are ‘immoral’ unethical discriminatory bigots that need to be silenced and controlled. Liberal church leaders claiming that homosexuality is ordained by God and evangelicals who oppose it are actually opposing the teaching of Jesus to love one’s neighbor?

What about the upheavals in nature and changes in climate? Are they just happenstance or has God lifted some of his protection from our nation? The fact is that the problems facing America are greater than any one person or group of people will be able to solve. Without a new download from heaven I fear that America is headed for the dust bin of history along with other great world powers of the past that have seen their day and lost their power. Does this sound overly pessimistic? I hope it’s just that.

For a long time I have been convinced that a major revival in America was just around the corner and now I am really concerned that we may miss it at the very time when we need it the most. I am still convinced that revival will come to some areas, some churches, and some communities in our nation regardless. But it is a Third Great Awakening from coast to coast that is really needed to bring our nation back from the brink.              

-Happy Independence Day, America!

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(July 4th: smilla4)

Happy Independence Day, America!

This is a good time to remember to pray for America and our future. Particularly pray for religious freedom and for revival.

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 

–2Chronicles 7:14